Wednesday, July 9, 2014

St. Louis Tour

You know us just hanging around

Today in the morning we had our tour at 8:30 AM, we
needed to meet each other in the second floor at 7:40 AM to eat breakfast. Our tour guide was very detailed about the
school and gave us explicit information about the school. Her name is Samona and she’s from California, too.

Samona teaching us how to use the touch screen map

Samona told us that she chose Washington
University, St. Louis because she applied to it and got accepted. Then she got
an email from the university telling her that if she wanted to come down and
visit the school she could. She accepted
the offer and fell in love with the university because everyone in the school is friendly with people who want to know about you and your experience at the
university. She loved that the university provides students the option to take a
double major so you would not have to focus on just one major. Something I
found very interesting was that the Knight Hall for business was constructed in
March of this year. Knight Hall is a
very beautiful building and unique because it has modern technology. They have 6 different touch screens and there’s one used
specifically to find where your professor’s room is located and it shows you
the route that you need to take (that’s very cool and helpful for freshmen). Another thing I like is that they have a career center that you can go at any
time to get help and there are always people in the career center trying to
support you with school purposes. She
told us that you can go any time to the career center and they have a saying, “Once
you’re a Washington student, you’ll always be a Washington student”. There’s a fun room upstairs in the same
building (DUC Hall) where you can go relax and clear your mind. It has two pool tables and a plasma TV where
you can play the X-box 360, PS3, and the Wii.

Fun Room

I can imagine myself playing in
the fun room because I like to play pool with my friends. Every Tuesday they have a tradition to give
free tea at 3 o’clock. What I really
like about this school is that they are like a family and every one helps each
other and nobody feels alone. The dorm
rooms have double twin beds with Tempur-Pedic mattresses and they share the hall
with 40 to 50 students. There’s a store called Bear Necessities that is by the
freshmen dorms and is a non-profit, where students can shop and the money is
donated back to the school. On the other hand, there are for-profit stores that
are run by students.

After the tour ended we went to our information
session where we learned more about how the professors interact with the
students and that sometimes the students and the professors can get close like
friends. They also talked about the
steps to apply to the WashU and what are they looking in the essays. I feel the information was very helpful
because it gave me ideas for when I start applying to colleges.

After we finished listening to the admissions
information, we went back to the hotel to go blog about the tour so it would be
easier for us to finish the blog on the plane and we could rest during the
flight. Alie gave us an hour to blog and
then we needed to meet her at the lobby to go the art museum and then to the
Zoo in Forest Park. When we all met in
the lobby we headed out to the art museum.
I have never gone to an art museum as huge as the St. Louis one.

St. Louis art museum

The art museum has three floors and is very
wide and has a variety of sculptures and art from around the world. Alie gave us and hour to go around and look
at the art and she gave us another mission and it was to find an art piece we
like and read about its history and what was so special about it. After we
shared our art piece that we like and discussed it, we gathered up in the
entrance of the museum and we walked to the zoo. The zoo was very big and has a lot of animals
such as monkeys, tigers, tortoises, zebras and the list keeps on going. I like that the zoo had a mist fan so people
can cool off. I saw my favorite animal
the lion but he was sleeping.

Triple Play

After the Zoo we went to Fitz’s, famous for their
root beer and sodas, and I ordered a Triple Play ice cream for the hot weather
of St. Louis. It’s too sad that tomorrow we are leaving. I really enjoyed being here because the people
are very friendly here and you can feel like the city is just a whole big
family. After we refreshed with the ice
cream we headed back to the hotel to keep on blogging and to get ready for our
dinner with the alumni of WashU.

My cohort and I needed to be ready at 6 PM, so we
could head out to Atlas restaurant. I was nervous because I didn’t know what I
would talk about with them but I felt confident that I was going to do a good
job making conversations with the alumni at the dinner. We got there before our dinner partners. When the alumni
arrived I felt relieved because they were young so I thought they would
be fun to talk to. Their names are Jenny, who works at the admissions office, Nicole,
Courtney, and Avery, the office intern/students. Avery plays Frisbee on the B team at WashU. This is something cool because I never knew
Frisbee was a major sport like that in the universities. Courtney does rowing
as a sport but she has some back problems so she’s the navigator, or coxswain, for
her team. Courtney has to wake up at
4:30 AM to go to practice and her practice starts at 6 AM. I think this is
something that I wouldn’t like to do because I love sleeping. During dinner we talked about the Bay Area and
which schools we go to and how our high schools work. I had a fun dinner with all of them because
for the first time I was able to be myself and not worry about being
professional. I realized that the whole point of the dinner is so they can know
me and I can know them. After we
finished eating, we all went outside and took a picture with them and we said
our goodbyes. One thing that surprised me is that they have to blog too but not
every day just on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (I think). It was a pleasure
meeting them and getting to know them.
All of them are so friendly and I like that because it made me feel more
comfortable around them.